The National Trust is already under fire for its efforts to keep up with modern times by dropping the prefix of “The”, switching to lower case lettering and jazzing up the brand with bright colours.

At the latest Annual General Meeting in Swindon this month, there is expected to be heated debate over the ‘Disneyfication’ of historic houses following efforts to “liven up” properties with volunteers dressed in period costumes.

There will also be questions raised over radical new plans to ‘bring the countryside alive’ by making nature reserves more like American national parks with wardens instead of ‘rangers’, mountain bike trails and ‘bbq areas’.

However the most contentious issue on the schedule is plans to stop members halting any of these plans through an Emergency General Meeting (EGM).

At the moment the members of the Trust can call an EGM with 0.25 per cent of the membership, which equates to around 9500 but the Board want to increase this to one per cent, around 38,000 people.

Related Articles

Members are complaining it will be impossible in the future to mobilise such a large number to fight any unwelcome propsals.

“This is barely disguised dictatorship," said Roger Gould, 67, a retired teacher and member of the Trust for the last 20 years.

"It is using democracy to defeat democracy, and it is a deeply cynical ploy to use the inertia of the members against any group that dares to question what is going on.

The last EGM was called in 1996 by members who wanted an outright ban on hunting with dogs on National Trust property.

The Trust points out that EGMs cost £600,000 to arrange and one per cent of the 3.8 million membership is a reasonable number of people to expect to agree.

The National Trust was founded in 1895 by three Victorian philanthropists concerned that rampant industrialisation was destroying the country's heritage.

Today the Trust is one of the country's biggest landowner with more than 248,000 hectares of countryside in England, Wales and Northern Ireland plus more than 700 miles of coastline and more than 200 buildings and gardens.

In recent years, Sir Simon Jenkins, the Chairman, and Dame Fiona Reynolds, have attempted to modernise the Trust by moving away from its stuffy image of “cream teas and country houses” by recreating historical scenes, encouraging people to grow vegetables on allotments and even allowing them to cook in the kitchens.

However it has not been popular with everyone, with accusations that the “cuddly approach” is trivialising the history and tradition of many of the properties.

The latest reforms, likely to be announced at the AGM, will call for a return for the founding principle of the Trust, which is to help people reconnect with the land.

Sir Simon and Dame Fiona are keen to encourage more people to get outdoors and enjoy the countryside by providing guided walks that can be downloaded on the internet, launching their own line of walking boots and even encouraging surfers on the beaches

But Stephen Bayley, the author and cultural commentator, said the Trust are in danger of “surburbanising the countryside”.

“I would like the countryside to be left alone,” he said. “Not packaged, commoditised and stylised by the National Trust for a docile public. I want the countryside to be wild, feral and free.”